Unguentarium (bottle for toiletry essences)

This Unguentarium comes from a grave in Cyprus. It originally contained perfume. What makes it special is its diagonally ribbed, spherical body. This effect was created by turning and simultaneously keeping the vessel in contact with a tool during the blowing process. The long neck was originally sealed with a plug made of organic material, e.g. wax.

The partially iridescent surface represents the corrosion process of the glass and is not an intentional effect. Often a part of the iridescence falls off like glass tinsel when touched.

The intact condition of the vial indicates its origin from a grave; only in this protected situation could such fragile glass survive many centuries unscathed. The circumstances of the find are unknown. Were there other grave goods? Was it a woman’s grave? Or was the burial part of a burial site such as is often found in Cyprus in Roman and Byzantine times, where burials were carried out over a long period of time?

Like the other objects in the display case on the right, this piece also comes from the illegally excavated collection of Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832-1904), who was first a professional military officer, then a diplomat and amateur archaeologist, and from 1879 the first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These glasses were purchased at an auction in Paris in 1873 by Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer, the great Swiss numismatist, and were later bequeathed to the Münzkabinett Winterthur.

As with most of the antique objects in the extensive collection of Cesnola, which mainly went to the Metropolitan Museum, we know neither the exact excavation site of the pieces nor the context in which they were found. By tearing apart the finds from a site, important information for dating the graves, the gender of the deceased, but also about their social position, their habits, their access to imported goods and their ideas about the afterlife are lost to scholarship.